Sao Paulo (AFP) – The Mercedes Formula 1 team marks its return to the top thanks to its title of constructors' world champion, a week after the coronation of Kimi Antonelli, ending five seasons of drought.

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 1:36 p.m.

“It took us several years to get back to the top, which required enormous determination and hard work from everyone at Brackley and Brixworth,” team director Toto Wolff said on Sunday evening in Sao Paulo, during the celebrations of the ninth coronation for the German team, whose factory and research center are located north of London.

“Few teams have been able to come back and win again,” boasted this architect of the triumph, a 54-year-old Austrian businessman who had already brought Mercedes to the firmament between 2014 and 2021 with eight constructor titles, thanks to the Briton Lewis Hamilton who brought him six as a driver.

Dozens of Mercedes engineers, technicians, mechanics and executives were ecstatic on the podium at the Interlagos circuit, in the rain and the jets of champagne, surrounding Wolff, the Italian prodigy Antonelli and the Briton George Russell, who had found a smile again.

Certainly, the youngest world champion in F1 history, crowned last weekend in Mexico, said on X that he would have preferred to win his tenth victory of the year in Brazil, where he only finished fifth behind Russell.

Antonelli conquered F1

But "the most important thing is that the team won the constructors' championship", did not fail to emphasize the 20-year-old Italian who has conquered Formula 1 and its hundreds of millions of fans, both through his talent on the track and through his personality in public.

His English teammate, completely overwhelmed this season, also saluted "the 2,400 people from Mercedes and AMG in the United Kingdom" and in Germany who put an end to five years of "fight", despite, he conceded, "up and down" this season, where he only won three GPs.

Mercedes had won the title for the last time in 2021 - and Hamilton in 2020 -, opening a difficult period from 2022 to last year, due to regulations to which the "Silver Arrows" had poorly adapted.

On the other hand, the overhaul in 2026 - with 50/50 electric and thermal hybrid engines and a redesign of the chassis and aerodynamics - suited Wolff's teams perfectly, who have developed ultra-dominant single-seaters, at least until the summer.

“We had to evolve the car, fight back against our competitors and optimize every time the opportunity presented itself,” summed up chief engineer Andrew Shovlin, acknowledging that Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari had returned to the race in the second half of the season.

Rebirth of “Mad Max” at Red Bull

The F1 subsidiary of the Austro-Thai energy drinks giant, world champion from 2010 to 2013 with the German Sebastian Vettel, then in 2022 and 2023 with the quadruple Dutch world champion Max Verstappen (2021-2024), is third in the provisional ranking this year, thanks in particular to three victories for “Mad Max”.

Verstappen's rebirth since the end of the summer and his reappointment to Red Bull make him a very serious candidate to dethrone Mercedes and Antonelli in 2027.

We will also have to take into account McLaren, crowned in 2024 and 2025, whose single-seaters are powered by Mercedes AMG and which still has one more title than the German brand.

Especially since the Briton Lando Norris, 2025 world champion, masterfully won his third GP of the year on Sunday.

With its ninth coronation, Mercedes equals Williams, currently far removed from the time of its splendor, from 1980 to 1997, under the aegis of Sir Frank Williams (1942-2021).

But Toto Wolff is still a distance from Ferrari, the oldest and most successful team, with 16 crowns, the last in 2008.

© 2026 AFP

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